[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 152 (Thursday, September 24, 2026)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E967-E968]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     HONORING THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOHN DAVID 
               HAWTHORNE, JR., UNITED STATES ARMY (RET.)

                                 ______
                                 

                      HON. SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR.

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 24, 2026

  Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a soldier, a 
scientist, a builder of communities, and a faithful servant of God--
Lieutenant Colonel John David Hawthorne, Jr., United States Army, 
Retired, of Albany and Baconton, Georgia, who entered eternal rest on 
Saturday, September 12, 2026, at the age of 77. His family and friends 
will celebrate his life on Thursday, September 24, at Saint Mary 
Missionary Baptist Church in Baconton, and on Friday he will be laid to 
rest with military honors at Andersonville National Cemetery.
  Mr. Speaker, John Hawthorne was born on November 14, 1948, the eldest 
of six children of the late Rosa and John D. Hawthorne, Sr. He grew up 
in Highlands County, Florida, in the years when the law of the land 
said that a child like him should be kept apart. In 1966, he walked 
across the stage at Lake Placid High School as the only African-
American graduate in his class.
  Picture that young man, Mr. Speaker. A cap and gown. A diploma in his 
hand. And not one face in the rows behind him that looked like his own. 
He could have carried that loneliness as a wound. Instead, he carried 
it as an assignment--and he spent the rest of his life making certain 
that the young people who came after him would never have to walk 
across that stage alone.
  He went on to Florida A&M University and to Tuskegee Institute, and 
in 1971 he graduated cum laude from Florida A&M with a Bachelor of 
Science degree in physics. That same year he was named a Distinguished 
Military Graduate, and on July 29, 1971, he was commissioned a Second 
Lieutenant in the United States Army. Years later, he earned a Master 
of Business Administration from Albany State University, an institution 
I am proud to represent.
  Mr. Speaker, few Americans have lived a life of such remarkable 
range. As a young engineer trainee, he worked on NASA's Apollo Saturn 
program--a young Black physicist from rural Florida, helping this 
Nation reach for the moon. He served as a zone manager for the Lincoln 
Mercury Division of Ford Motor Company, and he held management 
positions with Procter & Gamble.
  But it was in uniform that his country asked the most of him, and he 
gave it. Across 26 years of active and reserve service, he rose to the 
rank of Lieutenant Colonel of Field Artillery. He graduated from the 
Pershing Missile School and, while stationed in Germany during the Cold 
War, became one of the first African-American officers to command a 
Pershing missile unit--entrusted with some of the most consequential 
weapons this Nation has ever fielded. He completed the Army's Command 
and General Staff College, attended the Department of Defense and U.S. 
Army Europe Race Relations School, and later served as Deputy 
Commandant of the 3294th United States, Army Reserve Forces School. He 
retired from military service on November 14, 2008--his 60th birthday.
  Mr. Speaker, a man with that record could have gone anywhere. John 
Hawthorne came home to his neighbors.
  He served the City of Albany as Deputy Director of Community and 
Economic Development and as manager of its business incubator, and he 
taught business to the students of Albany State. In Florida, he served 
the City of Sarasota as Deputy Director of Planning and Redevelopment, 
led Highlands County Habitat for Humanity as its Chief Executive 
Officer, managed construction and assets for the Sarasota Housing 
Authority, and founded AHED Consulting Services. A Governor of Florida 
appointed him to the Board of Directors of the Florida Housing Finance 
Corporation.
  Mr. Speaker, I want this House to understand what those titles meant.
  When John Hawthorne opened a place for young people, he named it the 
``Outer Limits Teen Center.'' It is no accident, I think, that a man 
who had worked on the rockets that carried America to the outer limits 
of what it believed possible would give that same name to a place for 
teenagers--because he believed their limits were out there too, farther 
than anyone had ever told them. Yes, he also ran an ice cream parlor, 
because a man who understood rockets also understood what a scoop of 
ice cream means to a child on a hot Georgia afternoon.
  The man who once helped build machines to reach the moon spent the 
last chapters of his working life helping families reach something 
closer to home, and in its own way just as hard to reach: a front door 
with their own key. There are families in Georgia and in Florida 
tonight who sleep beneath a roof they can call their own because John 
Hawthorne believed they deserved one and would not rest until they had 
it.
  Beneath every uniform and every title was a man of faith. At New 
Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Baconton, he served as Vice Chairman 
of the Deacons' Ministry and as Special Assistant to the Pastor. He 
served on the board of the Mitchell County House of Hope in Camilla. A 
man who had commanded soldiers and missiles in Germany was content to 
serve as a deacon in a country church in Mitchell County. That, Mr. 
Speaker, is what greatness looks like when it kneels.
  He was a proud member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated, 
whose brothers will gather to bid him farewell.
  For all the Nation knew him to be, to the people who loved him most 
he was simply husband, dad, granddad, and great granddad. He was the 
devoted husband of Iris Allison Hawthorne, his partner in faith and in 
life. He was counselor, protector, encourager, and friend. He shared 
what he knew with anyone willing to learn, and he left every room, 
every organization, and every person better than he found them.
  Mr. Speaker, the Apostle Paul, near the end of his own life, wrote 
words that might have been written for John Hawthorne: ``I have fought 
a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.''
  On Friday, the Army he served for 26 years will lay him to rest at 
Andersonville National Cemetery, in the Second Congressional District 
of Georgia, with the honors he earned. A bugle will sound. A flag will 
be folded and placed in the hands of those who loved him. The young man 
who once walked across that stage alone will be surrounded, at last, by 
generations of Americans who answered the same call he did.
  Somewhere beyond the reach of any rocket he ever helped to build, I 
believe he has already heard the only words that ever truly mattered to 
him: ``Well done, thou good and faithful servant.''
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join my wife Vivan and me, along 
with the more than 765,000 people of Georgia's 2nd Congressional 
District in honoring the life and legacy of Lieutenant Colonel John 
David Hawthorne, Jr. We extend our deepest condolences to his

[[Page E968]]

wife, Iris; to his children; and grandchildren and great-grandchildren; 
and to all who loved him. We pray that they will be consoled and 
comforted by an abiding faith and the Holy Spirit in the days, weeks, 
and months ahead.

                          ____________________